Tag Archives: mentor

I asked Jillian why she still thought about her name and her birthday situations. I know they were a problem for her in the years at high school.

She said she didn't really care about them any-more; they were really not important now. I wondered?

“Besides”, she added, “They were small things”.

She went on to say, “The quote by Richard Carlson in his book 'Don't sweat the small stuff' which goes on to say – 'It's all small stuff' tells me to keep the little things in life from driving me crazy; and it's true. But some stuff does seem to be hard to totally remove from your subconscious. And it can pop up at any time, inopportune moments mostly.

“But,” she went on, “Jillian with a J does make my signature easier to write....”

“As for the other things,” she continued, “Sometimes it's easier to blame someone or something else.

“I know that's not right, but, ya know, it's not my fault. I didn't choose when to be born. How could I? But when I was a kid it seemed that something or someone else was always more important then me and my needs. I know I used to cry a lot.”

Deep stuff. You probably figure that as TMI (too much Information), but Jillian is really a cool person. If we are gunna do this we have to take everything. Only 100% game playing here.

Jillian works for a large multi-national company and is still (as far as I know) after all these years – enough to earn Long Service Leave – not in an executive role. I asked her about that.

The answer.

I fancy myself as a writer to be, and this seemed like a way to practice writing dialogue and following the age old writer's dictum of 'Show, Don't Tell.'

I contacted Jillian and it was agreed that this might well be a good idea. She said she trusted me, and knew I would not say anything really terrible, nor give out any identifying information.

She also figured that a third party opinion of her and her life, (and in public as well), might be very interesting and also maybe helpful in giving her a different view of herself and perhaps even an insight into her life now and in the future.